Yu Sasage, Montélimar Noisette

Took a half day off and didn't accomplish many things. That's normal, but I actually did try and did accomplish a few things, as the list of things is pretty long now. However, especially because I mistook the Sadaharu Aoki schedule (there was a new cake today, but only in Nagoya, which gets special treatment from JPH as well), I did go for cake, by bicycle. Yu Sasage is along the borderline between the exceptional and quite exceptional shops and was in line for a cake to try to make the jump. There were a couple promising new cakes, the other a chiboust, but I went with the Montélimar Noisette, which was explained as having Montélimar mousse, which I didn't find informative, since Montélimar is a place name, though I guess I new it was associated with honey. Actually, they were using it to mean honey meringue, which I'll have to try to remember and confirm that as tracking with what other shops mean. Other components are, obviously, hazelnuts, in mousse form, as well as dacquoise. It was definitely good, but is maybe too small and light a cake for me. This might be a case were some fruit would help.

 

Viron, Montélimar

I saw that Viron, which is nominally a superb shop (even though I hadn't had enough cakes from them, there was hole in the category when OC closed) had a new cake when I was out the Saturday before passing through Shibuya but decided not to get too greedy. It wasn't at (nor was there a card for it) in Marunouchi when I visited later (not that I was ready to buy then either), which might be a pattern for these two shops. So I did run to the Shibuya shop on Monday (not my usual pattern, but it's not farther) and late though it was, they still had plenty of cakes and I could get Montélimar. I was hoping it would be similar to a cake of the same name from L'A because that is great (almond mousse, I think) and this shop might make a better one. However, not the same kind of cake at all. It's been a while, but I think it was coconut cream honey mousse and fruit, which could still be okay, but this was not so exciting, though it seem appropriate as a bakery shop cake somehow. Unfortunately, I like more extravagant things, so this put the shop under threat from a couple shops in the quite exceptional category. 

Actually, I didn't take the shortest path and got a picture of the new Aoyama Grand, which would to be on the old neighborhood route, since it's going to have a bakery, which is not yet open. What is open (though maybe not actually at the time of night) was a tea shop. Still haven't visited after a couple weeks: it's more of a taking-a-walk kind of place, which it's too hot and mask-requiring now to do any of.

Shima: Montélimar

I'm working my way through the under-visited Excellent shops and tried P. Shima today. Nothing was particularly recommended, so I took a chance and got Montélimar. It's vegetables in cake, and it's sweet enough and creamy enough that it's different from vegetables in Jello, but really not that big a step up, so I couldn't really see the point and no particular flavor stood out besides the sweetness to make it cake. It's ok, but I regret not going for something standard, like their mont-blanc. I'll probably be less adventurous next time.

For the running, of course, first I had to get the cake and bring it back, because they close early (but are close). Then I wanted to try a new long neighborhood map that swings out to the temple and shrine on the northwest corner of Shinjuku Gyoen Park by swinging all the way south. I installed a new app, Runtastic and tried it out. It's not the pro version. It didn't quite handle the tricky bit at the far point where I circled around the temple (Google also recommends the same wacky route there if you don't really pin it down at the right points, which is probably why) and the phone was hard to get out (I need a new bag for jogging with a bigger outside pocket) and figure out how to get it to stop recording, though may I'll get better at that, but it was reasonably close about the distance and speed, so I'll probably leave it to do future calculations. Still running on the balls of my feet today, which I did the first 5 km at a relatively fast 10 km/h, but the next at 8 km/h, partially from being tired, partially from more obstacles in the form of people, a pedestrian bridge, and less familiar roads.